Rising healthcare costs are a major concern for employers whether they have few employees or thousands. It is essential for employers to monitor employee utilization of benefits and make innovative changes to maximize returns.

Effective communication is the key to keeping employees informed of benefits available and encourage them to utilize these benefits to improve health and wellness. Family, work, and situations that are not under our control take a toll on health, time, finances, and overall wellbeing. These cost employers millions either directly through high premiums and benefits or indirectly through lost employee productivity. Therefore, it is very important for employers to encourage and even incentivize employees to make healthy lifestyle changes to improve their overall physical, emotional and financial wellbeing.

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, 'In 2016, the US spent 17.8% of its gross domestic product on health care and spending in the other countries ranged from 9.6% (Australia) to 12.4% (Switzerland). The proportion of the population with health insurance was 90% in the US, lower than the other countries (range, 99%-100%), and the US had the highest proportion of private health insurance (55.3%).'

Often, employees are unaware or do not fully understand the benefits that are available to them from their employer. They are unable to take advantage of these benefits so there is no impact on healthcare cost reduction. In most cases, employees received benefit information during the hiring and onboarding process with no further communication during the year till next enrolment cycle from the employer. Employees do not have information about the benefits at hand and not remember what is available when they could be using them. Lack of involvement and communication from the senior leadership also lead to lower participation in companywide healthy initiatives and wellness programs. Employers roll out wellness challenges and rewards without proper communication and coordination throughout their organization. Inability to inform and include stakeholders such as management, employees, and their families creates frustration and apathy.

A single App that aggregates all benefits and other employer-provided services with features to facilitate effective communication between the employers and their employees would be a game-changer. The Green Circle Platform delivers all of this and more. With an easy to navigate dashboard, employees can access all the benefits and HR services, with Single Sign-On to the respective vendor portals and internal services, all available at their fingertips whenever it is needed. The Green Circle Platform can be accessed through the web or using native SmartFHR™ app for IOS and Android. It ensures better utilization of benefits and incentives and more return on investment for employers.

The employee communication features in Green Circle Platform enables easy and effective communication between the employers and employees. Employers can reach the employees, all employees or even target groups that are predefined in the system through various modes like, email, SMS and app-notifications. This becomes even more valuable when the employees are scattered across multiple locations. Your HR Communications Team will be able to send reminders Informing employees at a specific location about an onsite health screening, flu-shot campaign, or a weekend charity event. Employees can share their thoughts and experiences with their colleagues using the bulletin board and messaging features.

The Green Circle Platform offers an innovative way to bring together employers, employees, and their family members. If features like new employee orientation, compliance, training, payroll, benefits etc. are integrated into the platform, it becomes a very powerful tool which the employees and families will access and use on a day-to-day basis. As all stakeholders become more engaged, communication and compliance improve leading to less stress and better job satisfaction.

Green Circle Platform can be configured and customized to reflect an organization's culture, vision, and objectives. Now is the right time to contact Green Circle Life team and learn more about how we can work together to deliver a one-of-a-kind experience to your employees.